Monday, January 16, 2012

#21 Makeover a piece of furniture

 I have a problem. An obsession, really. I’m addicted to chairs. There is but one of me living in my humble home, and 12 chairs. Nine of these are wooden chairs. None of them are new, and all of them were purchased from thrift stores and yard sales. Most of my home furnishings were, in fact.


My family of chairs

I started furnishing my home long before I had one (like learning to tie a tie before I have a man to tie one on). I started buying items when I was in high school. My mom and I would wake up early on Saturday mornings during the summer to go to yard sales. We'd get a newspaper, donuts, and head to one of our neighboring towns to hit as many sales as we could.  All who know me can attest that I despise waking up early.  However, cheap old things and chocolate donuts are a heady combination that is nearly impossible for me to resist. 

My parents were gracious enough to store my purchases and projects in their garage while I was in college! Some girls have a Hope Chest….I had a Hope Garage! Finally, in 2005 (okay, so I guess my parents stored my collection a little longer than just through college), I found the perfect one bedroom duplex. Wood floors, built ins, original hardware…just the place I’d always imagined for all the things I’d collected!

I’ve collected more over the years, and my house is bursting at the seams! I added a chair about a year and half ago that I’d purchased at a Thrift store. It was a cute shade of pale pink, but the paint was chipping. Now, normally, this would be a good thing….I love chipped paint! But underneath the pale pink was a burgundy color that just wouldn’t do. After it sat around my house for about a year, I decided to do something about it.


 
On my list was to makeover a piece of furniture. To be honest, I’d intended to makeover something a little more complex than this, but when you’re purchasing things at thrift stores and yard sales, you are on an unpredictable time table and success is often out of your control. I’ve had people ask me to decorate their homes like mine, but I am quick to explain to them that my house is the product of a decade and a half of shopping. Some trips to the thrift store and Saturdays yard-saling, many in fact, are fruitless. I wasn’t able to find a piece that inspired me this year (or that I wanted to fork money over for, or that I would have a place for), so I made over the little pink chair.

I painted it a cream color, then upholstered the seat in a large checked fabric. The fabric I used is actually an old sample square from a fabric store. The wood I used to cover the seat of the chair started out covering the whole seat but I had my dad cut it down for me. My parents are both very handy, which really comes in, well, handy.

While not complex, the makeover was still a success.  I took an old, chipped, ugly chair and made it new again.  I've given something old a new purpose.  A new beginning.  It made me think of the changes Christ makes in us when we confess our sins and ask for His redemption in our lives.
 
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation;
the old has gone, the new has come!
2 Corinthians 5:17

So now, my newest chair fits in very well with the others in my home. Although they don’t all fit very well at all. Some just sit along the wall because there‘s no other place for them to be. I suppose it’s time I place a moratorium on buying chairs…until I find a really cute one, that is! ; )

The Finished Product

2 comments:

  1. My obsessions are lamps and pillows. Ack!

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  2. awesome!!! I love the checked fabric on the seat, and I love reading your blog.

    ReplyDelete